English 239 @ Illinois State University

homework: Watson session and research prep

Hey all, here is your updated assignment to prep for next week’s class (our last before the Watson conference).

(1) Read through the linked session descriptions for all the lettered sessions (Concurrent Session A-G) and choose one session during each time slot that you plan on attending. Most of your choices should figure into your group topic, although not all of them have to. Pick some you just find interesting as well. Post these 7 sessions (titles and authors) to your blog by midnight, Tuesday, October 7.

(2) Also in that blog post, list 5 assets you plan on gathering to support your project topic. These might include specific things like the following:

I will interview Richard Selfe, Laura McGrath, and Geoff Sauer [i.e., three people listed in the conference program who seem to know about what you’re going to ask them about, given what they’re presenting on…] about faculty technology training in English departments.

I will read Richard Selfe’s article about “Sustainable Techno-Pedagogy” that I found in Teaching Writing With Computers (Takayoshi and Huot, editors).

I will ask 10 of my dorm/apt/living-mate/students what computers they have access to on campus and whether and how their teachers ask them to integrate technology into their assignments.

etc.

iow, these assets can be things you want to gather at Watson AND (esp for those not going to Watson) things that you can research while you’re here.

(3) Meet with your groups prior to class next week and strategize how you will go about collecting assets and who wants to do what part of the group work, etc. Remember the pre- and post-production readings we did earlier this semester and assign roles accordingly. For instance, in the group consisting of [made-up names] Susy, Daisy, John, and Jonah, Susy isn’t going to the conference, then obviously she needs to choose a group role that doesn’t involve interviewing people at the conference. Maybe she does more research, or video-editing, than someone else does. It all will/should balance out, as you share responsibilities in the group. I can help you with this in class, but the more you can do before class, the better prepared you will be for the conference. (See the other post for a listing of who’s in what group, with which topic.)